Do you know your target market? When asked that question most trainers, consultants, and professional coaches can paint a fairly clear picture of what a target client looks like. When asked how they market to that target audience a list of marketing channels or media follows. But is the target market using those channels or media? The ease in which
Read moreGetting testimonials is not a groundbreaking marketing suggestion. However, many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches don’t consistently generate testimonials from their satisfied customers. Here are several ways to make gathering testimonials part of business as usual. Use Client Emails One of our best clients at generating testimonials has at least two every month. How does he consistently generate so many
Read moreArticle and content reuse can be a valuable way to save time in producing the quality content that drives productive online marketing. It can also be a crutch that leads to repetition, disinterest, and obsolescence. It’s rare that I encounter a trainer, consultant, or professional coach that isn’t strapped for time. Any strategy for decreasing the time commitment to sustain
Read moreWith tools like Google Reviews and Yelp there is no shortage of communication channels online for people to provide reviews on your product or service. Many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches tend to ignore these comments and review. It’s just not something they monitor as part of their online presence. While that isn’t necessarily damaging, it does ignore an avenue
Read moreMost trainers, consultants, and professional coaches have plenty of competition but some still insist on adding more . . . themselves. Pay close attention to your calls to action. If you find that your offers are too similar or promoted simultaneously, you’re probably competing against yourself. We run into this primarily with two particular calls to action. The first is
Read moreToo much of a good thing will inevitably corrupt it. Usability is important but can be taken to an unsustainable extreme. We ran into an issue recently where an email tested fine across browsers and platforms. One of the test users printed it and found that there was some odd spacing at the bottom. So we had other testers print
Read moreMarketing is often a “fun” business topic. It’s surrounded by new opportunities and getting a company’s name into the market. Sometimes trainers, consultants, and professional coaches let that zeal taint how they perceive business issues. Their desire to work on marketing makes all problems look like marketing problems. In discussing calls to action with a business owner, he told me
Read moreI was part of a strategizing meeting for a new online marketing initiative years ago. The owner of the company who was looking to start the new campaign interrupted the project manager on seeing a sample landing page layout and said “I’m not sure about that shade of blue in the background.” The blue in question was pulled from their
Read moreThere is a lot of “common knowledge” that floats around about what’s good for a particular metric and what’s bad for a particular metric. While these numbers can serve as a guideline they are likely a poor benchmark. Make sure that an industry average actually applies to your industry. As an example 10% is often used as a good click
Read moreEvents can be a powerful call to action. They can also be a source of stress as a marketing tool because it can really put a firm’s reputation on the line. The embarrassment at having only two people show up for an event is tangible and gives a poor first impression to the limited audience members. This stress often leads
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